Page 92 of Pucking Forbidden

It doesn't match.

I pause. The skin beneath my fingertips feels raised, jagged, and slicker than the smooth muscle surrounding it. I trace it downward. It’s a thin, jagged line a few inches long near his ribs. I move my hand higher toward his shoulder blade, and my fingers find another.

Then another.

Some are small and uneven. Some feel old and deeply set, while others aren't quite as faded. Near the center of his back, my thumb brushes over a distinct, circular mark that feels slightly puckered. Almost like…a burn.

My chest tightens, a sudden, cold weight dropping into my stomach. These aren't hockey scars. They’re not from the tattoos…the lines don’t line up. I know what skate cuts and puck lacerations look like. My dad has plenty of them. Those are clean, surgical, or precisely stitched. These are chaotic.

Violent.

A heavy sob catches in my throat, my vision blurring with a hot rush of tears as the horrific reality settles into my bones. My fingertips hover just millimeters above his skin, trembling so violently I can barely hold them steady.

Who could have done this to him? Who could have looked at this boy, this sweet, protective, amazing man, and hurt him like this?

An overwhelming wave of fierce protectiveness crashes over me. I don’t see the intimidating, untouchable hockey player the rest of the world sees. I just see Julian. The man who holds me like I’m made of glass, and who makes me feel safer than I ever have in my entire life. He has so much goodness in him, so much quiet tenderness hidden beneath all those sharp edges, and the thought of someone intentionally tearing into his skin makes me physically sick.

Oh, my sweet Julian. Who did this to you??

Julian shifts beneath my touch. A low, gravelly rumble forms in his chest, and his grip on my waist tightens before his eyes flutter open. The deep chocolate of his gaze is heavy with sleep, but the moment my fingers trace over the puckered mark again, I watch a sudden, sharp lucidity take over his expression.

“Julian,” I whisper. I choose my words carefully. “What are these?”

He lies completely still for three long heartbeats. I can hear the clock ticking on the nightstand. I brace myself, expecting silence.

Instead, he sucks in a deep breath and meets my gaze.

“My father,” he rasps, his voice a low, hollow sound that cuts right through me.

The breath catches in my throat. I don't speak. I don’t want to interrupt him and make him stop. He takes a moment, seeming to choose his next words carefully.

“My mom tried to be there for me, I suppose,” he whispers, his jaw tightening as he turns to stare at the ceiling. “But she was too broken, and she left. Saved herself and left me and my brother behind.”

“You have a brother?” How did I not know that? It’s only hitting me now how little I actually know about Julian before he joined the Night Hawks.

“Had.” The word comes out clipped.

I press my palm flat against his chest, feeling the sharp, ragged rise and fall of his chest. “What happened to him?”

“Leo packed a duffel bag the day he turned eighteen,” he explains through gritted teeth. “Looked at me in the hallway. Said he couldn't take it anymore, and walked out. I was fourteen. After he left, there was no one else to absorb the blows. I became the only target.”

Instead of breaking down, Julian’s entire body goes rigid. He pushes himself up, sitting completely upright against the headboard. His chest rises and falls in sharp, shallow breaths, his jaw clenched so tight that the muscles tic.

I shift closer, crawling up the mattress until I’m kneeling right beside his massive frame. I press my chest against his side, stretching my arms around his broad shoulders. I try to rest my chin on his shoulder to ground him. He’s so impossibly tall that I can barely reach, my chin only making it to the solid crook of his collarbone.

“Dad was a drunk and a gambler," he continues. “A mean one. When he drank, his rage was unpredictable. He turned our house into a literal minefield. If I dropped a glass, if I breathed too loud, if I stepped on the wrong floorboard at the wrong time…it would trigger an explosion. I spent four years sleeping with one eye open, waiting for the door to burst off its hinges. It never felt safe. Not for a second."

He pauses, his throat bobbing hard as he swallows down the memory. When he speaks again, his voice fractures slightly before he thickens it, trying to force the emotion back down.

“Then Mrs. Clay found me,” he murmurs, his gaze finally drifting down to meet mine. “She saw the bruises. Let me come to her house whenever I wanted, fed me, and did her best to keep him the hell away from me. She wanted me to live with her, but I knew that would put her in Dad’s crosshairs. She couldn’t always protect me, but she tried, and that fucking counted for something.”

He reaches up, his thumb brushing over my jawline with a tenderness that breaks my heart. “She means everything to me, Hads. She’s the only reason I’m not sitting in a cell or lying in a grave right now.”

He goes quiet, and his entire body is rigid with tension. I rub his arm and press a gentle kiss to his shoulder.

“Mrs. Clay sounds incredible,” I whisper. “I’m so glad she was there for you, and I’m so sorry that you suffered as you did. Is that why it’s difficult for you to open up to people?”

His eyes darken. “When you grow up like that...you learn real quick that you can only rely on what you can control. Your environment. Your routine. If everything is in its exact place, nothing can catch you off guard. You also learn that people leave. Eventually, the floorboards creak, the peace breaks, and they walk out.”